In less than a year, the United Nations will convene a special Millennium
Assembly as a global summit on the future of the world. This event will
crown a decade of preparation to launch the new millennium on a new system
of global governance. The blueprint was published by the Commission on
Global Governance in 1995. Now, a Charter to achieve global governance
has been developed for presentation at the Millennium Assembly next September.
It will be published publicly on UN day, October 24th.

It is called The Charter for Global Democracy. It has already been signed
by influential leaders in 56 nations, and has the support of civil society
non-government organizations around the world. The document is, in reality,
a Charter for the abolition of individual freedom.

The first of 12 principles calls for the consolidation of all international
agencies under the direct authority of the United Nations. The second
principle calls for regulation by the UN of all transnational corporations
and financial institutions, requiring an "international code of
conduct" concerning the environment and labor standards.

Principle number 3 demands an independent source of revenue for the
UN, such as the "Tobin tax" and taxes on aircraft and shipping
fuels, and licensing the use of the global commons. The "global
commons" is defined to be "outer space, the atmosphere, non-territorial
seas, and the related environment that supports human life."

Number 4 would eliminate the veto power and permanent member status
on the Security Council. Number 5 would authorize a standing UN army.
Number 6 would require UN registration of all arms and the reduction
of all national armies "as part of a multilateral global security
system" under the authority of the United Nations.

Principle number 7 would require individual and national compliance
with all UN "Human Rights" treaties and declarations. Number
8 would activate the International Criminal Court, make the International
Court of Justice compulsory for all nations, and give individuals the
right to petition the courts to remedy social injustice.

Principle 9 calls for a new institution to establish economic and
environmental security by insuring "sustainable development."
Number 10 calls for the establishment of an International Environmental
Court.

Number 11 calls for a declaration that climate change is an essential
global security interest that requires the creation of a "high-level
action team" to allocate carbon emission based on equal per-capita
rights. Principle number 12 calls for the cancellation of all debt owed
by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions, and for "equitable
sharing of global resources," as allocated by the United Nations.

As preposterous as these ideas may sound to freedom-loving Americans,
most of the world considers them to be an improvement over their current
circumstance. The fuel that fires the global governance movement, however,
is not the desires of oppressed people, it is the money supplied by the
well-to-do elite who feel the need to "do something" to help
the less fortunate people of the world. The strategy for advancing the
movement is supplied by those who expect to control the machinery of global
governance.

It is no coincidence that financial contributions in support of the Charter
for Global Democracy are to be made to the London office of United Nations
Association.

Dozens of documents, all promoting some form of world government, have
been circulating for most of this decade. All contain these same principles.
The Millennium Assembly will receive these documents and meld them into
the legal instruments required to modify the existing UN Charter. It will
take a year or two for the legal documents to be prepared and adopted,
and another year or two for ratification. The world is truly standing
at the threshold of world government.

Woodrow Wilson brought the world to the same threshold nearly 80 years
ago; the United States decided not to enter, and the League of Nations
collapsed. Once again, it is up to the United States to determine the
future of the world. If the United States embraces this Charter for Global
Democracy, the world will be subjected to global dominance by the United
Nations. If the United States opts out, the world may be spared centuries
of inevitable oppression.

There is no issue of greater importance in next year's election than
where each candidate stands on global governance and national sovereignty.
So far, this issue has not emerged in any national campaign.

The United States must prevent this catastrophe-in-the-making. Global
governance, as envisioned by the Commission on Global Governance and the
Charter for Global Democracy cannot succeed without the support of the
United States. The United States must walk away. For all practical purposes,
the next President, and the next Senate will make that decision.

By walking away from the UN's vision of global governance, we are not
turning our backs to the rest of the world. Our next President and Congress
should say no to global governance, and offer a better idea.

There is no better idea, nor higher aspiration, than individual freedom.
America pioneered that technology 200 years ago, and it is still the most
valuable asset we possess.

Freedom or democracy?

Freedom and democracy and not synonymous. In most of the world, the term
democracy means the right for citizens to participate in the process of
government. It is a right granted by the government, and controlled by
the government, and if exercised improperly, it is denied by the government.
Freedom, on the other hand, is the right to govern one's self.

Freedom is the power to enter into voluntary agreements with other people
who have precisely the same freedom, to achieve objectives of mutual benefit,
as determined only by the parties to the agreement. Freedom is the power
to make the rules which govern those agreements. Freedom is the power
to create and control a system of general governance designed to serve
its creators. Freedom is the power to cheat, lie, and steal - and learn
the consequences of those actions. Freedom is the power to experiment,
to invent, to help others - and learn the consequences of those actions.
Freedom is the ultimate objective of human kind.

A system of global democracy, administered by the United Nations, would
turn the world away from its primary quest - individual freedom. Poverty
cannot be eliminated by taking wealth from some and giving it to others.
The inevitable consequence of such action is the expansion of poverty,
by taking not only wealth, but the incentive to produce wealth as well.

The environment - the global commons - cannot be protected for long by
regulated preservation. It must be protected by those who use it to meet
their daily needs. Government ownership or control of the environment
is the most certain way to insure its degradation through stagnation.

People, like virtually every other species on earth, should be free to
use that portion of the environment they can control in whatever way they
choose. If they abuse that environment, the environment will not sustain
them. If they cultivate and care for that environment, it will sustain
them. This is a fundamental law of nature that cannot be repealed by any
institution of government. In the long term, government attempts to manage
the environment become, in retrospect, examples of gross mismanagement.
Individuals, managing that portion of the planet they are able to control,
is the surest way to achieve a healthy, vibrant environment for all.

Freedom is the power to gain control over a portion of the environment
- land ownership. Freedom is the power to defend that land, by whatever
means necessary, from those who have not learned the consequences of cheating,
lying, or stealing. Freedom is the power to use the resources the land
provides to create products and services others are willing to buy. Freedom
is the power to buy products and services others have produced.

These are the ideas for which the world hungers. These are the better
ideas America should offer the world. Because these ideas have produced
prosperity beyond the wildest dreams of the rest of the world, we should
happily share our freedom technology with the world.

Democracy can be imposed upon people by government; freedom cannot be
imposed. Freedom must be learned through experience. Sometimes the experience
is bloody, as it was in America, and always, it is painful, as is the
current learning experience in Russia. It is the price we must pay for
the benefits freedom bestows.

America should stop pouring its prosperity down the United Nations' drain.
Instead, it should help directly, any nation that wants its people to
be free. If given the choice, the people of every nation would choose
individual freedom over a system of UN handouts. The governments of those
nations, however, are not likely to embrace the possibility of relinquishing
power. Governments of every stripe around the world, are the obstacles
preventing individual freedom.

The people of the United States should first ensure their continued freedom
by limiting the power of the government through the people elected to
represent us. We should insist that America never relinquish one more
ounce of its national sovereignty, and begin to reclaim our national sovereignty
by disengaging from the labyrinth of UN treaties we have embraced in recent
years. We should insist that our national defense is second to none, and
never subject it to the command of any authority but our own. We should
never relinquish our right for individuals to own and use land, nor should
we allow our government to use our tax dollars to buy the land which is
our posterity's birthright. We should direct our government to reestablish
as its highest priority, the protection of individual freedom for every
American.

These ideas are repugnant to the promoters of global democracy under
the authority of the United Nations. These ideas are labeled as "jingoism."
These ideas are described as "extreme nationalism bordering on hatred
of non-nationals." The opposite is true. These ideas are offered
to the rest of the world because America demonstrates that these ideas
can bring the same kind of benefits to all nations that embrace them.

This is the message the United States should deliver to the United Nations.
The next President and the next Senate will deliver whatever message we,
the voters, send. If we, the United States, embrace the Charter for Global
Democracy and the world government it establishes, America will be reduced
to the lowest common denominator forced equity demands. The power of individual
freedom will be caged in history books for generations. It could easily
take centuries of gradual decline and rising oppression before a new generation
of founders cast off the scourge of the UN-King and rediscover the truths
upon which America's founders built our great nation. We, the people,
literally hold the future of the world in our hands. The people we send
to Washington as the result of our next election will either embrace world
government, or reject it. It is up to us.